160	HAND AND SOUL
He now took to work diligently; not returning to
Arezzo, but remaining in Pisa, that no day more might
be lost; only living entirely to himself. Sometimes,
after nightfall, he would walk abroad in the most
solitary places he could find ; hardly feeling the ground
under him, because of the thoughts of the day which
held him in fever.
The lodging he had chosen was in a house that looked
upon gardens fast by the Church of San Rocco. During
the offices, as he sat at work, he could hear the music
of the organ and the long murmur that the chanting
left; and if his window were open, sometimes, at those
parts of the mass where there is silence throughout the
church, his ear caught faintly the single voice of the
priest. Beside the matters of his art and a very few
books, almost the only object to be noticed in Chiaro's
room was a small consecrated image of St. Mary Virgin
wrought out of silver, before which stood always, in
summer-time, a glass containing a lily and a rose.
It was here, and at this time, that Chiaro painted the
Dresden pictures ;   as also, in all likelihood, the one-
inferior hi merit, but certainly his—which is now at
Munich.   For the most part, he was calm and regular
in his manner of study ; though often he would remain
at work through the whole of a day, not resting once so
long as the light lasted ;   flushed, and with the hair
from his face.   Or, at times, when he could not paint,
he would sit for hours in thought of all the greatness
the world had known from of old;  until he was weak
with yearning, like one who gazes upon a path of stars.
He continued in this patient endeavour for about
three years, at the end of which his name was spoken
throughout all Tuscany.   As his fame waxed, he began
to be employed, besides easel-pictures, upon paintings
in fresco ; but I believe that no traces remain to us of
any of these latter.   He is said to have painted in the
Duomo ;  and D'Agincourt mentions having seen some
portions of a fresco by him which originally had its
place above the high altar in the Church of the Certosa ;
but which, at the time he saw it, being very dilapidated,